No wireless connection

No, this is not the reason why I haven’t been posting for so long…. Just been very busy getting used to my new job at Skype, flying around, getting stucked in the tube in London, jumping on the plane at 20.25 when it was supposed to leave 20.25, long hours at the office etc. etc. I am not complaining though!! I love every minute of my work.

My work yes, if the wireless allows me to do my work. So, what happened.
Last night my IP had a problem. Maybe due to the huge thunderstorm we had. What ever, I lost my Internet Connection for an hour or so. When connected again, I switched on my modem, router, laptops and WiFi phone because there were loads of work waiting.

Old laptop and WiFi phone were doing fine but with me “new” laptop, I could not connect to the Internet.
Wrong IP address. Odd because all other devices were ok, why not this one?
I plugged in a cable from the laptop to the router and to my surprise, this worked ok. The correct IP address. All clients listed in the router, all settings correctly.
Mmm… I puzzled and puzzled, reset everything, uninstalled Broadcom, rebooted, puzzled again but at 1 AM I still had the same problem. My provider couldn’t tell what happened, or even better: how to solve it, either.

A bit frustrated because I am earning a living with my laptop, I went to bed but even asleep I was looking for solutions. AAARRRGGGHHH....…….

I dropped a message in the Beta chat about the problem and Martin, Beta tester for Skype, spent numerous hours trying to sort out what was wrong. He never got tired with giving advices, downloading the manual of my router, going through al options not once but numerous times, etc. etc. Unbelievable patient and supportive.
He and I felt frustrated when around 4 PM, the problem was still not solved. I owe him a huge beer next time I see him.

We gave up and I phoned HP who had some other tricks up their sleeve but again, no solution. Starting up in the safe mode though triggered a long forgotten action with me: a system restore……..

But after all we went through, HP thought it was worth trying but he feared the worst.
I have never watched the screen of my laptop as intense as I did during the system restore and reboot.
Like I was watching a thriller: eyes wide open, fingers entangled, biting my lip. I almost forgot to breath!

And yes!! Wifi was back to normal, correct IP, excellent connection. Gosh, I was soooooooooo happy!!

Thank you Martin, thank you HP for all your time and patience, I will never forget that.

But what did cause this time consuming problem? We still don’t know. Will it remain a mystery for ever or can I invite you to my puzzle?